Book of Illustration Competition 2015

Sadly, I wasn’t able to complete these illustrations, or the binding image, in time for entry, but I thought I’d upload my work in progress anyway.

I wanted to maintain a vintage print style, but with a contemporary finish, keeping the colour palette limited and the lines hand drawn. The deep, mossy greens reflecting the sense of death and decay that runs through each ghost story, and the curved, whispy lines adding to the mystery and intrigue evident throughout.

The first illustration is for the story The Treasure of Abbott Thomas by M.R. James.

‘So the whole secret was out;'Ten thousand pieces of gold are laid up in the well in the court of the Abbot’s house of Steinfeld by me, Thomas, who have set a guardian over them. Garc a qui la touche.’

The second, The Upper Berth by F. Marion Crawford.

'Everybody stopped talking. Brisbane’s voice was not loud, but possessed a peculiar quality of penetrating general conversation, and cutting it like a knife. Everybody listened.’

The third, A Tale of an Empty House by Anon.

'I saw masts against a sheet of water that appeared to stretch unbroken into the rain shrouded gloom of the gathering night’